Information technology systems often employ visually displayed icon, widgets, and other visual representations of aspects of user interfaces. As many information technology systems, such as personal computers, often include numerous software programs, the visual desktop of a technology system can become cluttered with visual images. The prior art employs toolbars and sidebars to group icons and other visual aspects of software programs in attempts at ordering and simplifying the presentation of these visual elements. However, the user experience can be degraded by the multiplicity of separate visual elements that are perceived at system start-up and during system operation by the user.
A user interface bridges the gap between a user who seeks to control a device and the software and/or hardware that actually controls that device. The user interface for a computer is typically a software program running on the computers central processing unit (hereafter “CPU”), which responds to certain user-typed commands. As computers have increased in popularity, the quality of the user interlace has become an ever more important consideration in the development of a computer, since many of these users are not familiar with and/or comfortable with many of the typed commands that are required to operate the computer. One popular type of user interface that simplifies the operation of a computer is provided by a VAIO FS8900™ notebook computer marketed by Sony Corporation of America, of New York City, N.Y. Other prior art personal computers known in the art may comprise user interfaces integrated with or within an XP™ or VISTA™ personal computer operating system marketed by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. Other popular types of user interface are include in Macintosh computers marketed by Apple Computer, Inc., of Cupertino, Calif.
The prior art includes significant effort to improve the visual presentation of display aspects of user interfaces, as evidenced by U.S. Pat. No. 7,409,646 (VedBrat, et al.; Aug. 5, 2008) entitled “System and method for manipulating toolbar component dimensions”; U.S. Pat. No. 7,173,619 (Hill, et al.; Feb. 6, 2007) entitled “Matching digital information flow to a human perception system”; U.S. Pat. No. 7,039,875 (Khalfay, et al.; May 2, 2006) entitled “Computer user interfaces that are generated as needed”; U.S. Pat. No. 6,918,091 (Leavitt, et al.; entitled Jul. 12, 2005) entitled “User definable interface system, method and computer program product”; U.S. Pat. No. 6,714,215 (Flora, et al.; Mar. 30, 2004) entitled “System and method for displaying media interactively on a video display device”; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,621,532 (Mandt; Sep. 16, 2003) entitled “Easy method of dragging pull-down menu items onto a toolbar”; and US Patent App. Publication Ser. No. 20050039144 (Wada, Alan, et al.; Feb. 17, 2005) entitled “Method and system of providing customizable buttons”. The prior art fails, however, to visually present aspects of user interfaces on a video display screen to optimize user comfort in using an information technology system.
There is therefore a long felt need to provide systems and methods to present visual aspects of user interfaces that improve the user experience with an information technology system.